12 Desperate Straight Lines

Merge; 2011

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On the one hand, Michael Lerner's Telekinesis comes over like boilerplate mid-aughts indie rock, slotting easily next to everything that draws a line to The Photo Album-era Death Cab For Cutie. But his sound can be traced back further; when he's playing spirted power pop, you could see his music working well between Matthew Sweet and Better Than Ezra (if you think the latter is an insult, perhaps you haven't listened to 1996's underrated Friction, Baby). But while Telekinesis' catalog brings to mind a handful of musical eras, it can sound a little odd in the present. What Lerner has been up to for the last few years isn't exactly fashionable, which is probably why he and labelmate contemporaries like the Love Language haven't yet received the type of recognition they might have only five years ago.

Good for Lerner, then, that he's stuck with his sound and kept at it with Telekinesis' second LP, 12 Desperate Straight Lines. The record has some of his strongest, catchiest tunes to date (especially the sugared-up anthem "Car Crash"), despite the continued reliance on silly lyrics (see the observation on "50 Ways" that "Paul Simon probably said it the best"-- I'll give you a hint, he's not referencing "Graceland"). But though this is his most consistent record, it might be too much so for its own good. On last year's stopgap Parallel Seismic Conspiracies EP, Lerner toyed with a rougher, frayed-edges sound; the experimentation resulted in a particularly terrible cover of pre-Joy Division band Warsaw's "The Drawback", but it also added vitality to a sound that too often seemed to coast on Telekines' self-titled debut.

On 12 Desperate Straight Lines, the guitars occasionally get abrasive, particularly on the stomper "Palm of Your Hand". But otherwise, slickness is the move here, as even the previous EP highlight "Dirty Thing" transforms from lovably slack to precisely ordered. But his approach could use some experimentation beyond just throwing in new wave guitar sounds, which sound foreign and out of place on the Cure-striving "Please Ask For Help". But if Lerner just keeps on doing his thing, he's clearly getting better at it.